Staten Island was the destination of a drunken man whom a Manhattan jury has awarded $2.3 million for horrific leg injuries suffered when a train hit him on the tracks.

Despite Dustin Dibble's intoxication, jurors in Manhattan state Supreme Court found New York City Transit was primarily to blame for the former New Springville resident's loss of his lower right leg in the 2006 incident.

Dibble whose blood-alcohol level was .18 -- or more than twice the legal limit for driving -- didn't know how he got on the tracks at the 14th Street-Union Square subway station, or how he arrived at the station for that matter, said his lawyer, Andrew J. Smiley of Manhattan.

Even so, Smiley argued that the motorman failed to immediately stop the train when he observed an unknown "mass" on the tracks about 180 feet away. That "mass" turned out to be Dibble.

"A subway train operator is obligated to stop a subway train before it strikes a large object on the tracks, even if it is not known that the object is actually an intoxicated person," said Smiley. "Whether or not [Dibble] was intoxicated is not the issue. The issue is whether the train operator saw him and could have stopped -- and he could have."

Smiley said his client, now 25 and living in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section, would have no comment.

Attempts to reach Dibble's parents upstate were unsuccessful

A Transit spokesman today said the agency is appealing the verdict and declined further comment.

Prior to the April 2006 accident, Dibble had spent the night drinking with pals in a bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was then 22 and working as an investigator for Bergdorf Goodman.

After leaving the saloon, Dibble and two chums took a cab to 34th Street where the trio exited, said Smiley. His friends were headed to the PATH train to New Jersey. Dibble, a former basketball and football player at upstate Utica College, was bound for the Staten Island Ferry and the borough home where he lived at the time.

Smiley said it's unclear how Dibble got to the 14th Street station, although he presumably took a train. Also unknown is how he wound up on the tracks.